Your jeweller may soon act as a gold monetisation centre

The government is set to rope in certified jewellers as it strives to make a success of the gold monetisation scheme. Your jeweller would go through the know your customer (KYC) norms, collect precious metal, and be authorised to issue a certificate of authentication on the content and purity of the metal.

The Centre would embark on a massive publicity campaign to make the scheme more popular. (HT photo)

The government is set to rope in certified jewellers as it strives to make a success of the gold monetisation scheme. Your jeweller would go through the know your customer (KYC) norms, collect precious metal, and be authorised to issue a certificate of authentication on the content and purity of the metal.

There are about 13,000 certified jewellers registered with the Bureau of Indian Standards, which may work as collection centres. At the time of the launch of the scheme, there were just about 340 collection centres.

The Centre would also embark on a massive publicity campaign to make the scheme more popular.

“While the gold bond scheme has got a very good response, the gold monetisation scheme will take some time to become popular as the mindset of people will have to change. We would soon launch a publicity campaign and increase the number of collection centres. The melting centres would also be allowed to operate as collection centres,” Shaktikanta Das, secretary, department of economic affairs told HT.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 5 last year launched gold monetisation scheme, along with sovereign gold bonds and coins, in order to tap into the yellow metal lying idle in households and temples, and widen consumers’ investment choices.

“The country’s jewellers can play a very important role in the process and make the scheme a huge success. We are already in talks with the government and we have also given our suggestions on the scheme,” said Ashok Minawala, All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation.

Under the gold monetisation scheme, resident Indians – individuals or trusts including mutual funds, exchange traded funds registered under Sebi and temples, among others – can deposit their idle gold, bullion, and jewellery in banks and earn an interest on it. The mobilised gold will also supplement the RBI’s gold reserves and will help in reducing the government’s borrowing cost.

Earlier, minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha said that the government has also initiated talks with the temple trusts for bringing their vast stocks of gold into the banking system through the monetisation scheme.

According to official estimates, Indians buy about 300 tonnes of gold bars every year purely as an investment asset.

India imports an average 1,000 tonnes of gold each year, which widens the country’s current account deficit—the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign currency.